1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical report creating apparatus operating in a medical information system to create, for example, a report on results of interpretation of medical images that a medical specialist is requested to interpret, and in particular, to a technique for allowing the easy linkage of a string in observations in a report to an image, a past medical report, or another file which corresponds to the contents of the string.
2. Description of the Related Art
Acts of medical treatment have hitherto been classified into a large number of technical fields. Medical specialists have been commonly requested to interpret medical images obtained using an image diagnosis apparatus such as X ray diagnostic apparatus, X ray CT apparatus, and MRI apparatus. When requested to interpret such an image, a medical specialist causes the image to be displayed, makes a report on it (a report on interpretation of the medical image; referred to as a medical report below), and delivers the report to the requester.
An apparatus that electronically creates such a medical report has already been put to practical use. With this apparatus, for example, medical images delivered by the requester through network distribution are stored in a server. When the image interpreter gives an instruction on creation of a medical report, the apparatus displays a sheet used to create a report, on a screen, and accepts inputs to required items shown in the sheet. Then, the apparatus sequentially displays the images to be interpreted in accordance with the image interpreter's input instructions. If the image interpreter has added his or her opinion to observations on the images, the apparatus enters the opinion in an observation column in the sheet. If the image interpreter has input the results of a diagnosis on the basis of the image observations and in view of the requester's purpose of the check, the apparatus writes the contents of the results to a diagnosis column. On this occasion, for images pointed out in the observations, the apparatus can create and paste reduced/enlarged images or cut images to an image pasted column or the like as required. The apparatus then delivers sheet data in the medical report created using the above procedure, to the requester through, for example, a network.
For reports created using conventional medical report creating apparatuses such as the one described above, some people have pointed out difficulties in understanding the relationship between the contents of the entries in the observations and the pasted images. For example, if a plurality of similar images is pointed out in the sentences of the observations, the images pointed-out may be mistaken. Further, if pasted images are displayed on the report screen, the observation information may not be correctly understood depending on the resolution of a monitor or the size of the screen. Furthermore, if the image interpreter desires to reference not only images to be interpreted but also a past medical report, historical information, and the like, the image interpreter must perform a cumbersome operation of reading, editing, and pasting information files to the report.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 1998-079770 provides a technique for utilizing link information required to reference a particular group of files as external information in order to share diagnostic information in an electronic health record system. However, the technique described in this publication only enables any medical institutions to extract a particular group of files on the basis of link information by presenting a patient card in which the link information is stored. Accordingly, the technique cannot simply be utilized for the creation of a medical report.